At 43, with birthday No. 44 coming May 24, Bartolo Colon is the oldest player in the major leagues. Wearing his ninth different major league uniform, the one the Atlanta Braves gave him, Colon has averaged 15.5 wins in the four seasons since he turned 40.

With a pair of 15-win seasons and an 18-win season, this has been his most productive stretch since the four seasons from 2002 through 2005 when he compiled 74 wins, including a pair of 20-win seasons, with the Indians, the Expos and the White Sox. His age during that stretch was 29 to 32.

“It’s remarkable,” said Mark Shapiro, who was in his first year as Cleveland’s general manager when the Indians signed Colon in 1993 in his small rural birth place in the Dominican Republic. “I think it’s a testament to …

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I called Jeffrey Loria at noon last Thursday. No one answered the telephone in his Miami Marlins office so I called his New York number. When he isn’t in Florida on baseball business, Loria is in New York. He is an international art dealer and apparently made enough money to buy baseball teams, minor league and major.

His major league team has been one of the topics of discussion involving Loria so I figured I would call him and see what was happening with the reported sale of his team and reports about his becoming the United States ambassador to France.

I didn’t really expect Loria to talk to me. He hasn’t for years. That wasn’t the case when I worked for The New York Times. As a New York resident and an art dealer, Loria felt the Times was important to him and his business.

He used to tell me I was the best baseball writer in the business and how …

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No team pampers its pitchers more than, or as much as, the New York Mets. Limits on innings, games, pitches, skipping starts, giving them an extra day of rest between starts – the Mets do it all. Yet all of the Mets’ starters get hurt, spend time on the disabled list, even have surgery and miss entire seasons.

As if on cue, on the Mets’ second day of spring training last week – the second day! – Zack Wheeler, who missed the past two seasons following what has become popularly known as Tommy John surgery, sat on the sidelines, not throwing with the other pitchers.

The Mets didn’t seem concerned, suggesting Wheeler’s problem was only scar tissue, which pitchers who have had surgery often encounter. The incident, however, clearly signaled to the Mets …

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